North America Advisory Board

Chris Parsons is currently General Manager of Mayborn Group North America – the owner of the Tommee Tippee brand. Tommee Tippee supplies feeding, soothing and hygiene products to consumers across the globe.

Tommee Tippee is the current number 1 brand of infant and toddler feeding products in the UK. It is one of the fastest-growing brands in the global baby essentials market. Available in more than 40 countries, Tommee Tippee has experienced strong growth in North America, Europe and Asia.

Before joining Mayborn Group, Chris was the Senior Vice President of International for the NFL (National Football League). He was responsible for the commercial and fan development activities around the globe. During his tenure, Chris contributed to:

• the growth of the NFL fanbase in core focus markets
• expanding marketing activities
• increasing media exposure
• securing record revenues for the NFL’s international business 

Prior to joining the NFL, Chris was Vice President of Reserve Brands (Ciroc, Don Julio, Johnnie Walker Blue) for Diageo plc. In this role, he established Diageo’s first luxury operations, which included the highly successful co-marketing collaboration of Ciroc with Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Chris has also served as the Vice President of Johnnie Walker. Under his direction, the Johnnie Walker brand expanded into broad cable advertising distribution and celebrity event marketing. This resulted in record revenues and profits.

During his 10 years at Diageo, he also served as the Vice President of Beer, winning several marketing excellence awards in the U.S. for his work with the Guinness and Red Stripe brands. He was also responsible for Diageo’s US marketing training and development programmes.

Chris grew up in Manchester, UK. After graduating from Newcastle University, he held various sales and marketing positions at Bass plc, before moving to the US with the Diageo organisation.

Eduardo Garrido is an experienced management consultant. He has expertise in banking and higher education acquired in Argentina, Spain and the US.

From 2009 to 2016, Eduardo was the director of Santander Universities. He was responsible for the institutional and business relationships with 46 universities. He also launched several high impact global programmes.

Before coming to the United States, he held a similar position at Banco Santander Río in Argentina. While at Banco Santander Río he managed the relationship with 59 universities.

In 2004, he launched a seed capital fund to foster the creation of innovative, technology-based companies from universities and the scientific system in Argentina.

He also launched a regional competitiveness and development programme. This programme was in collaboration with universities. He also launched a programme to train entrepreneurship educators involving all universities from Argentina.

Before this, he had been senior vice president of Quality and Organization at Banco Santander Río. Eduardo led the ISO 9001 certification for all processes at the bank.

He has held positions in Spain such as:

• senior manager of Capital Markets and Financial Services at PricewaterhouseCoopers, S.R.C.
• director of Consulting Services at M.S.A. International Inc
• financial control manager at Citibank España, S.A

Eduardo holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Universidad de Buenos Aires and an MBA from Instituto de Empresa in Madrid.

Jack Goodman is Head of Communications for Thomson Reuters Global Growth and Operations (GGO) business.

Jack is responsible for communications’ role in building employee engagement. He ensures GGO’s business goals are supported by its communications infrastructure. These include:

• executive communications
• tools
• training and other communications support for managers
• online and social media channels
• acquisition communications
• employee engagement research

From 2010 until March 2012, as Global Head, Human Resources Communications, Jack led internal communications in support of Thomson Reuters “people agenda”.

He led key initiatives around:

• talent
• rewards
• organizational development
• employee engagement
• supporting technology

From 2008 to 2010, as Vice President, Employee Communication, Jack led internal communications for two groups within Thomson Reuters Markets division.

From 2003 to 2008, he led the global employee communications function for Thomson Financial, before Thomson’s acquisition of Reuters.

Before joining Thomson Financial, Jack was director of w3.ibm.com, IBM’s intranet. He developed and managed systems to:

• deliver company-wide messaging
• enhance the user experience
• manage the intranet’s growth
• measure its value

71% of IBM employees in 2003 said the intranet was their preferred and most credible communications channel.

Prior to IBM, he headed global employee communications at McGraw-Hill; co-led the intranet practice at Xceed, a web consultancy.

While at Golin-Harris and Makovsky and Company, he managed a range of global corporate clients, such as:

• IBM
• Toshiba
• Mastercard
• Sprint

Jack also has experience in management consulting, and television programming and production.

Jack holds an MBA from the State University of New York at Binghamton. He also has a BA in sociology, magna cum laude, from Boston University.

Neil is the Principal and Founder of MindsOpen, where he coaches executives. He also works with leadership teams to improve their performance, shift culture and drive change.

He enjoys helping individuals and teams unlock new insights to take big strides forward. He does this through his relational style, being unafraid to ask the tough questions and opening minds to new and different possibilities.

Other areas of specialism include:

• leadership development
• organizational development
• creativity
• leveraging relationships

A business psychologist and executive coach, Neil has over two decades of global experience working with leaders, teams and organizations from a wide range of industries.

These include:

• investment and commercial banking
• private equity
• pharmaceuticals
• consumer goods
• professional services
• energy
• healthcare
• logistics
• media

He has worked across the spectrum of Fortune 500s, small to mid-sized firms, start-ups, non-profits and government organizations.

Prior to founding MindsOpen, Neil was a Managing Director at YSC, a global leadership consulting firm.

His client work included coaching, succession planning and team development.

Neil began his career in the UK working for the British Military. Here, he found his niche profiling officers for specialist roles.

He then joined Scotland Yard, London's police service, and was soon appointed Head of Psychology. He led a range of high-profile assignments including debriefing the UK police response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. His last role at Scotland Yard was Director of Security Strategy for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Neil is a Fulbright Scholar and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. He graduated with an MSc in Organizational Psychology from the University of Hull. He also has a BA in Psychology from the University of Newcastle.

He lives in New York City but remains a dedicated supporter of Leeds United, his hometown soccer team. He enjoys travel, modern design and film. He also owns and curates a contemporary, online art gallery, The Road Gallery.

Nigel Dawn has been the current Senior Managing Director at Evercore since September 2013. They provide advice and execution services for owners and managers of private financial assets.

Before joining Evercore Nigel headed up the Secondary Market Advisory team within the Private Funds Group at UBS.

Nigel established the Secondary Market Advisory team in 2004 and has advised on over $16 billion of secondary transactions.

Clients have included:

• leading US public investors
• university endowments
• banks
• insurance companies
• hedge funds
• leading private equity general partners

He joined the firm in 1997 within the fixed income area. He then took responsibility for making direct equity investments. These supported the strategic aims of UBS Investment Bank business areas as part of the e-commerce function.

Nigel has also led UBS Investment Bank’s Third-Party Private Equity Funds Team.

Here, Nigel structured and executed a $1.3 billion joint venture between UBS and HarbourVest Partners, Tresser, LP. This reduced private equity exposure by selling third-party funds.

Prior to joining UBS, Nigel worked in the Financial Services Practice at Booz, Allen and Hamilton in New York. Before that he was based in Asia with Standard Chartered Bank.

Nigel is a Newcastle University graduate. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Politics and earned his MBA at Columbia Business School.

Brad O'Brien is currently CEO of Hatstand, a niche technology and data management consultancy.

Hatstand was acquired by Synechron in May 2016. Synechron is a digital, business consulting and technology services firm. They work primarily in the Financial Services domain.

Hatstand's services include a bespoke junior talent development programme. This is aimed at recent graduates in business, finance and technology.

Prior to his current role, Brad spent most of his professional career working within investment banking. He relocated from his native UK to the US in 2000 with UBS.

He has lived in Stamford, Connecticut with his wife, Joanne, and son, Daniel, for the past 17 years. His passions include most sports (particularly rugby, cricket and football) and music.

Brad has a First Class honours degree in Economics and Business Management at Newcastle University. He graduated in 1995.